365 Urban Species. #203: Chicken Mushroom

[urbpan]

Photos by urbpan. Location: The Riverway, at the base of a red oak.

Urban species #203: Chicken mushroom Laetiporus cincinnatus

A word about the scientific nomenclature of this species. Currently, molecular identification techniques are causing a revolution in mycology. Mushrooms that are familiar among those who collect and eat them, are turning out to be complexes of species that have different ecologies. The chicken mushroom is one of these. Mycologist Tom Volk advocates using the name cincinnatus for those chicken mushrooms that have a white spore-bearing surface (as opposed to yellow) and grow from the base of the tree they are feeding on. The urban-ness of the species name is, of course, most appealing to me as well.

Chicken mushrooms are among the most sought-after of the edible mushrooms. They are named for their textural resemblance to chicken flesh when cooked (raw, like many mushrooms, they cause stomach upset). When I discover a chicken mushroom, I have to photograph it immediately, before some urban forager harvests it.


The white, spore bearing surface.


This is what the chicken mushroom looked like earlier in the week:

Comments

[trywhy.livejournal.com]

ten bucks says it was someone just "cleaning up" the park...

its a rare person indeed that scavanges the park for edible mushrooms.

[pinkveneer.livejournal.com]

you haven't been to boston then :)
or we have a lot of *rare persons* of that, i have no doubt

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

The parks near my house are frequenly scavenged for chicken mushrooms and oyster mushrooms. They leave the amanitas and russulas alone.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

and hen of the woods!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That's true--we rarely find an intact Grifola frondosa.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

i don't think i could ever get over the fact that it's most probably covered in dog urine. i'm assuming collectors aren't aware or don't think about that!

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Oh yes they do. You clean it (with paper towels or a brush more likely than with water) and you cook it.

Real mushroom hunters hunt mushrooms everywhere and all the time. The nice fellow likes to look in the chert scree across the street from my stepmother's house in the middle of San Francisco. There's often shaggy parasols there. It's sort of indicative of San Francisco that in a dense urban neighborhood where you can hardly park in, there's a cliff face with scree, colonized by escaped roses, valerian, and Monterey pine: and those shaggy parasols.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

despite all that, they're still covered in dog piss. :) it's totally psychological but i can't get over it. not that i'd be inclined to eat them anyway.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

however, you may see a squirrel-nibbled amanita!

(they enjoy them)

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

yeah, we've actually witnessed people collecting edibles (and kicking non-edibles, but that's another thing entirely).

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I don't get the thing where some mushroom hunters kick the mushrooms they don't approve of. David Arora said when he was finding muchrooms on Mount Fugi the Japanese mushroom hunters had kicked the king boletes and gathered the amanita muscarias (yes, they're edible, but only if you blanch them thoroughly and toss the water you blanched them in). Here, of course, people gather the king boletes and frequently kick the amanitas, which I think is mean-spirited, because the banana slugs like them.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

i don't think it's the mushroom hunters doing the kicking, it's more stupid kids.

[silvaerina-tael.livejournal.com]

So, this a pinkish-white version of chicken-of-the-woods?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Right. The yellower version, Laetiporus sulphureus, I sometimes find at work (about 15 miles out of the city, in the woods/farm country).

[silvaerina-tael.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the photo. I'll have to find out if they grow in my region.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

they do for sure, you're just a hop, skip, and jump away from us.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

still haven't caught one of these wild, gorjus, thanx!

and yeah, really, around fresh pond and places, a mushroom can't have an honest day, if you can eat it, people collect them. all of them. hah.

found a white bearded type last year, went back to take pictures, it was already GONE, and i got a frakking parking ticket for my trouble.

i was told by the joker that took it that it was delicious ;)

lots of wine caps and other fine species there.

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